Premises Liability Safety Rules

Premises liability cases are those cases that arise out of a property owner or possessor’s negligent maintenance or operation of a property. But what does it mean for the owner or possessor to be negligent? How do we know that they broke the rules and can be held responsible? What are the premises liability safety rules? How safe does a property owner have to be when they maintain their property? When does a property owner have to fix something, warn someone, or avoid creating conditions?

These are good questions that will help make sense out of whet her or not you can hold someone else responsible for your injuries. The answer is that what the rules are different based on how the person who got hurt got onto the property. There are two basic rules and it depends who you are to see which one applies:

If you are:

1. Someone who is invited to come on land for a reason that the land is open to the public for; or
2. Someone who is asked to come on land for a reason in some way connected to business activities with whoever is possessing the land; or
3. A social guest,

   Then the safety rule that applies to you is =>

   • Whoever possesses or owns the land must fix or warn of dangers that the owner or possessor knew or should know of by the use of reasonable care and which the visitor can’t or shouldn’t be aware of by the use of reasonable care; and
   • Whoever possess or owns the land must guard against foreseeable criminal activity.

But, if you are one of the following, you have a lot less protection:

1. A person who enters land without express or implied invitation; or
2. A person who enters land without invitation and intrudes for a reason of his or her own or who comes on the land for no reason but without invitation,

   Then the safety rules that protect you are =>

   • The owner must not do anything on purpose to hurt you. Said another way, the owner must remove any concealed traps of which the owner has actual knowledge; and
   • The owner does not have any responsibility to protect you from any crimes of others

Now, there are other areas with slightly different variations of the above safety rules. In particular, your Miami slip and fall lawyer has a different series of rules to work with if you had a slip and fall accident as a result of transitory substances and suffered personal injuries. In this area, the law is a little harsher.

Florida Statute 768.0755 provides that if a person slipped then and fell in a business establishment as a result of a transitory substance, then that person must show that the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and should have taken action to remedy it. The issue in this area is that, if the Plaintiff cannot show that the defendant knew of the substance that you slipped on, then you lose. And, if prior to trial, your Miami slip and fall lawyer cannot point to any facts that, even from a circumstantial standpoint suggests that the substance was there long enough to remedy it and that the Defendant had actual knowledge of it, then the Court can grant what is called summary judgment which basically throws the case out of Court. So, the safety rules in slip and fall cases as a result of transitory substances require a business establishment to keep their shoppers safe from transitory substances that they have actual knowledge of.

These are the safety rules in many of the premises liability cases we see in Miami. If you were in a slip and fall accident, our Miami slip and fall lawyers can talk to you about these rules to see if the person whose property you fell on violated them. And, if it was any other type of premises liability case, our Miami Premises Liability Accident Attorneys can go over those rules to see whether the owner broke them and can be held responsible for any damages caused.

Call the Miami Personal Injury Lawyers at Wolfson & Leon for a free consultation today at (305) 285-1115. We are here to help you.